Branching paths
The player navigates a map that forks, choosing among routes that lead to different encounters, rewards, and risks — Slay the Spire's node map, FTL's sector jumps. Branching paths turn traversal into strategy: every fork is a decision weighing elite fights against shops, treasure against safety, forcing players to plan a route through the run rather than being railroaded. Designers use them to add macro-level decision-making on top of moment-to-moment play and to guarantee run variety from the same content pool. Key decisions: how much information is visible ahead (fully revealed maps enable planning; fog forces improvisation), path convergence points (rest sites, bosses) that re-sync pacing, node-type distribution and adjacency rules, and whether backtracking is possible. Pitfall: an obviously optimal path (always take elites for the loot) collapses the choice — every route type needs a real tradeoff so the decision stays live each run.
- Dev effort: Small
- Timing: Real-time or turn-based
- Common in: roguelike, deckbuilder
Seen in
- Slay the Spire
- FTL: Faster Than Light